Spitalfields

Spitalfields is a district in the East End of London and within the borough of Tower Hamlets. It was known as Spittellond by 1399, named for the St. Mary Spital priory erected on the east side of Bishopsgate in 1197; it had come to be known as Spyttlefeildes by 1561. It was covered with fields and nursery gardens until the late 17th century, when streets were built into Spitalfields to accomodate the Huguenot (from the 1680s) and Irish (from the 1730s) silk weavers who settled in the area. By 1687, over 13,000 French Huguenot refugees had settled in the East End, and, during the late 17th and 18th centuries, terraced houses were built to house the master weavers. Spitalfields was also home to Spitalfields Market, established in 1638 by King Charles I of England. By 1822, the silk manufacturing business had mostly deserted Spitalfields, and the merchant dwellings had become multi-occupied slums by the Victorian era. From the 1860s, large numbers of Eastern European Jewish refugees arrived in Spitalfields to work in the textile industry, but inner Spitalfields came to be the worst neighborhood in London by the later 19th century; Spitalfields was rife with robbers and prostitutes, and the streets were some of the foulest and most dangerous streets in the metropolis. Dorset Street, located in Spitalfields, was reputed to be the worst street in London, and it was the site of the gruesome murder of Mary Jane Kelly by Jack the Ripper in the autumn of 1888. From 1891 to 1894, some of the worst streets in the area were demolished after the Ripper's murders drew international attention to the plight of the East End's impoverished residents. In the late 20th century, the Jewish presence diminished and was replaced by an influx of Bangladeshi textile workers who helped to make Brick Lane the curry capital of London. From the 1960s, Spitalfields was subjected to gentrification. In 2011, Spitalfields had a population of 10,286 residents.